This monograph was begun during my residence as Rogers Memorial Fellow at Harvard University, and is based mainly upon a study of the sources, i.e., national, State, and colonial statutes, Congressional documents, reports of societies, personal narratives, etc. The collection of laws available for this research was, I think, nearly complete; on the other hand, facts and statistics bearing on the economic side of the study have been difficult to find, and my conclusions are consequently liable to

1. Plan of the Monograph. This monograph proposes to set forth the efforts made in the United States of America, from early colonial times until the present, to limit and suppress the trade in slaves between Africa and these shores. The study begins with the colonial period, setting forth in brief the attitude of England and, more in detail, the attitude of the planting, farming, and trading groups of colonies toward the slave-trade. It deals next with the first concerted effort against the trad

3. Character of these Colonies. The planting colonies are those Southern settlements whose climate and character destined them to be the chief theatre of North American slavery. The early attitude of these communities toward the slave-trade is therefore of peculiar interest; for their action was of necessity largely decisive for the future of the trade and for the institution in North America. Theirs was the only soil, climate, and society suited to slavery; in the other colonies, with few excep

10. Character of these Colonies. The colonies of this group, occupying the central portion of the English possessions, comprise those communities where, on account of climate, physical characteristics, and circumstances of settlement, slavery as an institution found but a narrow field for development. The climate was generally rather cool for the newly imported slaves, the soil was best suited to crops to which slave labor was poorly adapted, and the training and habits of the great body of sett

16. Character of these Colonies. The rigorous climate of New England, the character of her settlers, and their pronounced political views gave slavery an even slighter basis here than in the Middle colonies. The significance of New England in the African slave-trade does not therefore lie in the fact that she early discountenanced the system of slavery and stopped importation; but rather in the fact that her citizens, being the traders of the New World, early took part in the carrying slave-trad

23. The Situation in 1774. In the individual efforts of the various colonies to suppress the African slave-trade there may be traced certain general movements. First, from 1638 to 1664, there was a tendency to take a high moral stand against the traffic. This is illustrated in the laws of New England, in the plans for the settlement of Delaware and, later, that of Georgia, and in the protest of the German Friends. The second period, from about 1664 to 1760, has no general unity, but is marked by

32. The First Proposition. Slavery occupied no prominent place in the Convention called to remedy the glaring defects of the Confederation, for the obvious reason that few of the delegates thought it expedient to touch a delicate subject which, if let alone, bade fair to settle itself in a manner satisfactory to all. Consequently, neither slavery nor the slave-trade is specifically mentioned in the delegates' credentials of any of the States, nor in Randolph's, Pinckney's, or Hamilton's plans, n

40. Influence of the Haytian Revolution. The rôle which the great Negro Toussaint, called L'Ouverture, played in the history of the United States has seldom been fully appreciated. Representing the age of revolution in America, he rose to leadership through a bloody terror, which contrived a Negro "problem" for the Western Hemisphere, intensified and defined the anti-slavery movement, became one of the causes, and probably the prime one, which led Napoleon to sell Louisiana for a song, and final

55. The Act of 1807. The first great goal of anti-slavery effort in the United States had been, since the Revolution, the suppression of the slave-trade by national law. It would hardly be too much to say that the Haytian revolution, in addition to its influence in the years from 1791 to 1806, was one of the main causes that rendered the accomplishment of this aim possible at the earliest constitutional moment. To the great influence of the fears of the South was added the failure of the French

66. The Rise of the Movement against the Slave-Trade, 1788–1807. At the beginning of the nineteenth century England held 800,000 slaves in her colonies; France, 250,000; Denmark, 27,000; Spain and Portugal, 600,000; Holland, 50,000; Sweden, 600; there were also about 2,000,000 slaves in Brazil, and about 900,000 in the United States. 1 This was the powerful basis of the demand for the slave-trade; and against the economic forces which these four and a half millions of enforced laborers represent

74. The Economic Revolution. The history of slavery and the slave-trade after 1820 must be read in the light of the industrial revolution through which the civilized world passed in the first half of the nineteenth century. Between the years 1775 and 1825 occurred economic events and changes of the highest importance and widest influence. Though all branches of industry felt the impulse of this new industrial life, yet, "if we consider single industries, cotton manufacture has, during the ninete

80. The Movement against the Slave-Trade Laws. It was not altogether a mistaken judgment that led the constitutional fathers to consider the slave-trade as the backbone of slavery. An economic system based on slave labor will find, sooner or later, that the demand for the cheapest slave labor cannot long be withstood. Once degrade the laborer so that he cannot assert his own rights, and there is but one limit below which his price cannot be reduced. That limit is not his physical well-being, for

92. How the Question Arose. We have followed a chapter of history which is of peculiar interest to the sociologist. Here was a rich new land, the wealth of which was to be had in return for ordinary manual labor. Had the country been conceived of as existing primarily for the benefit of its actual inhabitants, it might have waited for natural increase or immigration to supply the needed hands; but both Europe and the earlier colonists themselves regarded this land as existing chiefly for the ben

1641. Massachusetts: Limitations on Slavery. "Liberties of Forreiners & Strangers": 91. "There shall never be any bond slaverie villinage or Captivitie amongst vs, unles it be lawfull Captives taken in iust warres, & such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. And those shall have all the liberties & Christian usages w ch y e law of god established in Jsraell concerning such p/ sons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be J

As the State statutes and Congressional reports and bills are difficult to find, the significant parts of such documents are printed in full. In the case of national statutes and treaties, the texts may easily be found through the references. 1788, Feb. 22. New York: Slave-Trade Prohibited. "An Act concerning slaves." "Whereas in consequence of the act directing a revision of the laws of this State, it is expedient that the several existing laws relative to slaves, should be revised, and compriz

This chronological list of certain typical American slavers is not intended to catalogue all known cases, but is designed merely to illustrate, by a few selected examples, the character of the licit and the illicit traffic to the United States. 1619. ——. Dutch man-of-war, imports twenty Negroes into Virginia, the first slaves brought to the continent. Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia (1626 and 1632), p. 126. 1645. Rainbowe, under Captain Smith, captures and imports African slaves into Massac

[The Library of Harvard College, the Boston Public Library, and the Charlemagne Tower Collection at Philadelphia are especially rich in Colonial Laws.] Alabama and Mississippi Territory. Acts of the Assembly of Alabama, 1822, etc.; J.J. Ormond, Code of Alabama, Montgomery, 1852; H. Toulmin, Digest of the Laws of Alabama, Cahawba, 1823; A. Hutchinson, Code of Mississippi, Jackson, 1848; Statutes of Mississippi etc., digested, Natchez, 1816 and 1823. Connecticut. Acts and Laws of Connecticut, New

1789–1836. American State Papers—Class I., Foreign Relations , Vols. III. and IV. (Reprint of Foreign Relations, 1789–1828.) Class VI., Naval Affairs . (Well indexed.) 1794, Feb. 11. Report of Committee on the Slave Trade. Amer. State Papers, Miscellaneous , I. No. 44. 1806, Feb. 17. Report of the Committee appointed on the seventh instant, to inquire whether any, and if any, what Additional Provisions are necessary to Prevent the Importation of Slaves into the Territories of the United States.

John Quincy Adams. Argument before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the United States, Appellants, vs. Cinque, and Others, Africans, captured in the schooner Amistad, by Lieut. Gedney, delivered on the 24th of Feb. and 1st of March, 1841. With a Review of the case of the Antelope. New York, 1841. An African Merchant (anon.). A Treatise upon the Trade from Great-Britain to Africa; Humbly recommended to the Attention of Government. London, 1772. The African Slave Trade: Its N